Best And Worst Feature Of Hybrid Cars

[cviclark]

For over 20 years our family car was a SAAB 96 V4, although I had company cars for about half of them. The 96 had "free wheel" so the clutchless gear changes and left foot breaking were the norm. Other valued features were a flat floor so you could exit or enter from either side, a back seat that dropped flat to give loading from the boot,or to turn the rear into bed and big skinny wheels. In bad weather it was unbeatable, superbly practical and very reliable. I drove it the long way home from Cyprus over some of the worse Turkish roads in the world. I kept it for so long because few of the many company cars I had were anywhere near as useful, although Peugeots 806 and Citroens XM came close. The Gen 2 Prius felt very similar to drive and "walk through" but I have never understood why any "traction avant" cars need a barrier between the front seats and footwells. Both were idiosyncratic and I suspect the work of engineers giving them features they would want to own.

[barrycoll]

I imagine that the lack of walk through in traction avant (Citroen Light 15 etc) is now due to torsional stiffness and rigidity...but the Prius does have a bit of DS 21/23 Goddess type look about it....

but nice car Saab 96....!

....in a way, hybrid technology and putting the car in Eco Mode almost replicates the 96's freewheel arrangement....now called 'cruise'

[barrycoll]

for those of the manual shift brigade, who havn't seen this little short film/video, it is a good entre into double de-clutching

possible more relaxed in a Prius????

http://videosift.com/video/Rendez-vous-Racing-through-Paris-in-a-Ferrari